YogiPlay Debuts “YogiMeter,” An Educator-Based Rating System For Children’s Learning Apps

Photo: Sarah Perez

Sarah Perez writes, "YogiPlay, a Menlo Park-based company from husband-and-wife team Cedric and Michal Selling, is attempting to tackle the critical problem of surfacing appropriate, trusted, and carefully vetted educational apps for children."

The company recently raised $1 million in VC funding from DN Capital and Richmond Park Partners, in order to develop a system for rating apps for kids, specifically targeting the ages 2 through 8. Today, YogiPlay is announcing the results of those efforts with YogiMeter, its new app rating system designed to help parents find learning apps for children that have been vetted by a team of educational experts.

Photo: YogiPlay

The Sellins are both Stanford-trained engineers, with Cedric hailing from Aruba Wireless and Michal an early Google employee. But they’re also parents who grew frustrated with how difficult it was to find quality learning apps for children. Cedric says they were inspired to start the company after watching their two-year old daughter interacting with mobile apps, and realized what powerful learning tools they could be.

In June, the company hired Dr. Jim Gray, who previously served as the Director of Learning at LeapFrog, where he was in charge of all curricula for the last seven or so years. At YogiPlay, he led the development of the YogiMeter system, which has been designed to assess the engagement levels and educational qualities of mobile apps.

“It’s using the same principles I’ve been using all along from my knowledge of child development and interactive media,” he says of YogiMeter. “I’ve structured in a way with some very specific ways to look at how and why kids would be engaged, and if they’re engaged, how and why they might learn.” He also vetted this rubric with other colleagues not associated with YogiPlay to get their feedback and input.
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About YogiPlay
We are a group of parents who believe that mobile devices have the power to be both fun and educational for our kids. Our mission is to help families turn mobile phones and tablets into truly smart devices! Yogiplay was created to give parents insight into their kids’ learning and development within a network of personalized, high quality, fun learning apps.
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Source: TechCrunch